STEINER: Make No Mistake — Abortion In America Is A Growth Business

If you only watch the statistics or browse headlines, it can be tough to get a clear picture of where abortion in America is trending. Is it up? Is it down? If so, according to whom? Is there a motivating political interest? (There generally is.) 

The harder you work to understand the landscape, the less sense you can make of anything at all. But make no mistake — abortion in America is a growth business.

It’s easier and more mainstream to get a “self-managed” abortion than ever before. Pharmacies are now, under the auspices of an aggressively pro-abortion administration, dispensing abortion pills. Telehealth prescriptions for those pills surged by 136 percent after Dobbs, making it easy to procure an abortion regardless of your state’s laws. 

This is an important point when considering some of the latest mainstream data drawn from the post-Roe abortion landscape. “Roe v. Wade Is Gone, but Abortions Are on the Rise,” an Oct. 24 Wall Street Journal headline reads. The Guardian headlined their article on the topic, “US abortion rates rise post-Roe amid deep divide in state-by-state access” and concluded that any reduction in abortion from state-level bans was being offset by enormous spikes in states where it remained legal. Planned Parenthood, for example, performed the second-most abortions in its history in 2022.

But the data the WSJ and Guardian are reporting excludes “self-managed” abortions — arguably the fastest-growing and certainly the most difficult to track form of abortion. Taking those into account, the conclusion becomes clear — abortion providers of all stripes are flourishing. 

Advocates for abortion don’t rely on euphemisms anymore, or try to cloak their goals with decency or restraint. They demand abortions explicitly, and without a trace of shame. 

This “boom” for America’s abortion business is the result of heart-rending, widespread exploitation of vulnerable women and their children — for cash. 

Every abortion, however it happens, whether or not it is recorded, feeds the industry. The abortion pills can cost around $800. Surgical abortion early in the pregnancy runs between $600-800, and later in the pregnancy can cost as much as $2,000. Sometimes insurance covers these costs. Sometimes it doesn’t. 

Every time, though, a child dies in exchange for a fee. And in so many cases, a fearful, vulnerable woman pays to be deprived of motherhood because she’s been told it is the solution to her problems. 

Women need compassionate, complete medical attention when first discerning whether or not to pursue an abortion. They need our help and love, not a chatbot to rush them into a purchase that will change their life and end their child’s. 

That’s why the organization I lead, PreBorn!, trains ultrasound technicians to guide women through their decision with competence, insight, patience and gentleness. We cannot direct women to choose life, but we can at least give them every opportunity they need to make a fully informed decision about the abortion they’re considering. 

These women deserve to be safe, respected, cherished and supported. Overturning Roe didn’t make that happen, and never could. The abortion industry was ready and waiting to reach women in new ways, regardless of existing and future law.

Helping vulnerable women and their preborn babies escape the abortion machine is going to take all of us, at every level. No one is powerless — and for that reason, no one is free from a moral obligation to help. 

Abortion is the defining issue of our time. Join us as we join them in the work of protecting motherhood, community and life itself. Help us save preborn children, and rewrite the history of our generation. 

Dan Steiner serves as founder and president of PreBorn!, which serves the pregnancy clinic movement across America by placing ultrasound machines as well as providing executive and sonographer coaching, organizational development, marketing and fundraising.